


pull me from the light and promise no return

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Phone Calls & Telephones, Pre-Relationship, george does his best while suffering idiot disease, yup. its just dream having a panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28605558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Hey," George soothes, digging his heels into the fabric of his desk chair. "Hey. It's good to hear your voice."A soft, wheezing chuckle answers him. His chest nearly explodes from it."You too." Dream says.or, george gets a message from dream.naturally, he drops everything to help.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 203
Collections: Anonymous





	pull me from the light and promise no return

**Author's Note:**

> hello! hope you enjoy. this is unbeta'd, and i haven't even read it through completely, because i hate it and i hate myself for writing it. apparently, some things just have to happen. have fun lol

The text comes through when he's forty-five minutes into one of the more relaxed streams he's put out in the last month.

For George, at least, the relative catastrophe of the Dream SMP is holding less and less intrigue each time something goes horribly wrong for its players. Every other day was some new narrative development, some new twist or betrayal, and being honest-- he'd started to lose the plot. To be fair, it wasn't like the plot was in danger of collapse without him. He'd played a larger part in earlier seasons, and that was enough. He'd left his mark on a Minecraft multiplayer server.

What a legacy, truly.

For now, at least, he's entertaining a healthy 80,000 viewers with a test world for a new video. Typically, he doesn't like to do testing on livestream (some half-and-half combination of a fear of failure and a need for privacy), but the time since his last stream was growing a bit too long for comfort. The hamster wheel of relevancy is ever-spinning, a rat race for retention that exhausts better than anything else an the world. Sometimes, more than anything, George wants to step off. _Stop._ Live free of public scrutiny, disappear into comfortable anonymity. Dream calls it the Kaczynski Instinct, the few times he's mentioned it over the phone. The urge to get up and run until you fall off the face of the Earth.

_"Sometimes-" George had said, tongue heavy and honest with exhaustion. "Sometimes I want to leave it all behind."_

_He had waited for an answer patiently, eyelids drooping in the pleasant grey darkness of his bedroom. There was no anxiety when they talked, then. No pressure in his chest. Just him, Dream, and the pleasant confidence of an end-to-end encrypted Whatsapp call._

_"All of it?" Dream finally asked, tone unreadable. Perhaps later in their friendship, or with more sleep under his belt, George could have decoded it. Detected notes of apprehension, notes of curiosity. Notes of fear._

_George thought of his family, for a moment._

_How easy it is to forget them at times, when he becomes too caught up in the intricacies of adult life, no longer seeing them daily. How many times a week he forgets to text his mother back. How the intense feeling of distant guilt had slowly faded into a slight pinch._

_He thought of his friends._

_How quickly they had become inseparable, an impenetrable enclave in the harsh view of the public eye. There were few people in the world that could know what it was like to be them. A new kind of celebrity, entirely responsible for themselves, platformed and laureled and debated like no other subsect of humanity had ever been before. In a constant spotlight. Sometimes, he understands why Dream hides behind an avatar._

_"Not all of it," He'd replied. The silence that followed tasted like relief._

_"Well, good." Dream had said. "It's not like I'm letting you escape anyways."_

Back with the present, met with a familiar screen, George blinks. He's been absently placing down a wall of stone to test out his latest video idea (he hadn't posted it to chat, but something along the lines of _So I Turned Into a Ghost in Minecraft…_ ), reading out donos, and talking to the chat. It became overwhelming, sometimes, the aggressive scroll of a few thousand voices all at once, but he managed. It helped to lock onto one question at a time, answer politely, and then look away from the torrent of words for a minute or so.  


The chime of a message wakes him up in the middle of a dono, the words slipping from his mouth in an excess of breath. It's become habit to read the words of the donation rather quickly and then respond in adequate fashion, and no one seems to mind.

" _Hello George I love your streams how are you doing today?"_ He reads in a rush, glancing away from the game. "Thank you Sara for the 20, I'm doing--"

_Chime._

"Oh, hold on, sorry. I'm getting a text."

The donation sweeps off into the night. George is barely paying attention anymore.

The light from his phone barely offsets the studio light behind his camera, but he doesn't bother to adjust the white balance. It's sure not to last, considering he usually doesn't respond to messages during stream.

The problem with this one is that it's loud. Loud, and distinct.

Designed to wake him up, should it have to.

_WhatsApp_

**_Dream_ **

_George_

He blinks. The message is innocuous enough, just his name. Properly spelled and anything, capitalized nicely. It's how his mother texts him. Simple, clean, straightforward.

Only, Jesus Christ, Dream doesn't text him like that. Not at _all._

"Sorry," he apologizes aloud. The chat buzzes away, but he doesn't catch a single message, so the sentiment of the chat is lost on him. "Sorry, I-"

_WhatsApp_

**_Dream_ **

_I think I'm having a panic attack_

Before he can even reply, fingers hoving over the keyboard, another message comes through.

_My hearts been beating so fast today and I didn’t know why but now it wont stop_

A beat. Another message slides up from the bottom of the screen.

_I cant breathe_

George's throat tightens. He looks up at his monitors, catching his own reflection in the sleek glass. He catches words of alarm out of the corner of his eye, people asking him if he's alright in a way that feels simultaneously infantile and patronizing. Too intimate, that's for sure. Too, too fucking intimate, by far.

"I'm-- I'm so sorry, chat," he starts, clearing his throat. "Um. I've got-- it looks like I've got a bit of a family emergency going right now? I am so so sorry, but I've got to end early." His phone buzzes in his palm again. He doesn't look.

Glancing to the side, the chat seems overwhelmingly supportive. It only assuages the worry in his throat a little bit.  
  
"I'll, um." George swallows, frantically scanning list of lives to his left. His internal monologue is just begging to find someone, anyone he can pass his viewers onto. Pawn off 73 thousand watchful eyes onto another public figure, leave him to help someone he actually _knows_.

His eyes lock on a familiar profile. Bad. Bad is streaming.

Thank fucking _God._

"Uh, I'll just-- I'll host Bad, for now. Thank you all so much for watching." The last sentence pours from his lips with practiced ease, much more even than the rest of his words. Years of spouting the phrase have made it slick, familiar, reliable. Something he cherishes in the moment, fear threatening to overtake worry in his stomach.

George's phone buzzes again. He swallows, waves, forces a weak smile, and says a final goodbye before ending the stream.

The second it goes dark, he sags deeper into his chair, pulling off his headset and flipping his phone to frantically read the messages Dream has sent him during the interlude.

_WhatsApp_

**_Dream_ **

_What do I do_

_WhatsApp_

**_Dream_ **

_George please_

He unlocks his phone frantically, letting the notification pull him directly to their text chain. Less than two hours ago, Dream had sent him a couple photos, seemingly normal. Patches splayed out in the merch shrine, a quip following them that had made George snort in one-half exasperation and one-half amusement.  
He's pressing the call button before he can think to ask if it's okay.

Alone in the heat of his studio light, George prays mindlessly that Dream will pick up.

When his prayers are answered, the bright light almost feels like God.

"Dream?" he blurts, immediately. His voice almost peaks from worry, wrung out and practically dripping with concern. The call is silent, for a moment, before George hears a shift of fabric and a heavy, shuddering intake of breath.

"Dream, are you there?" George asks again, reaching up to flip off the light beaming uncomfortably into his eyes. It does it whenever he's looking away from his monitors, but it feels particularly scathing now. "I can help you. I'm here to help."

George hears a sharp exhale, and what sounds like a sniff. The line stays dead. Leaning in closer, he prays silently, again. His luck has never been perfect, but it worked last time, so he may just ride the lucky wave.

After a few seconds, his ears are almost entirely trained into the quiet noises. George is searching so desperately for any sign of life that when Dream's voice comes through the speaker, he jumps.

"I'm here," comes across, tone weak and uncertain. The feeling of Dream-- someone with a massive presence, even with his voice alone-- sounding so small sets George reeling. Reeling, yet simultaneously determined to _fix_ it.

"Hey," George soothes, digging his heels into the fabric of his desk chair. "Hey. It's good to hear your voice."

A soft, wheezing chuckle answers him. His chest nearly _explodes_ from it.

"You too." Dream says. George pauses, hesitates. He can't tell if Dream is sitting behind his phone waiting, or if he's about to spill over, words pouring from him as fast as they could. George has heard Dream's verbal exoduses more than once, in a number of contexts, but this seems like the one time he well and truly needs one.

"I don't know what's _wrong!_ " finally comes across, sharp and harsh and shaking. George can hear the tremor in his companion's voice, wrapping around the frustration at its core like the silk of a corn husk.

"I don't know what's _wrong_ with me!" Dream spits, vulnerability a burning feeling in the upper parts of his throat. George knows the feeling intimately, has felt it himself. Relinquishing information to anyone is usually met with difficulty, and Dream was no exception in the beginning. The beginning, that is. George fucking _treasures_ how easy it is to talk to him now.

"Nothing's wrong with you," he tries.

"I can't-- George, I can't-- it's been so hard, all day, it's like my heart is going to fucking _burst!_ I can feel it through my- my shirt, George, it's so fucking _loud_ \--"

"Hey, come on now," George says weakly, feeling a pang in his own chest. The words are laden with pain, frustration, confusion; all things he desperately wants to take away from the man and carry for him. _I'd take it from you in a second, if I could,_ he thinks, gazing down at the call screen through his eyelashes.

"Deep breaths, Dream."

"Don't--" a sharp gasp cuts through his words, slightly distorted by proximity. "Don't-- don't call me--"

"Okay, okay," George placates. "Clay, it's okay. I won't call you that. I promise."

Dream shifts on his end, voice garbled, barely a mutter. "Just Clay."

"Just Clay." George promises. "It's just you and me, Clay. There's no one else here; just you and me. I swear."

The sigh he hears from the other end tells him a lot more about the cause of this than anything Dream-- Clay-- could possibly say. With newfound confidence, he presses further, gently prodding the boundaries of the black box his companion has built around himself.

"Just us." he reinforces, glancing at the dark void behind his dead webcam. "I promise, Clay, no one is going to interrupt. You’re safe here."

"Safe," Clay echoes. George nods, before realizing (with no small amount of embarrassment) that he's in the absence of physical company. All Clay heard from him was silence.

"Can you describe to me where you are?" he prods gently, remembering vaguely what to do to help someone with a panic attack. "Give me the run down, with those excellent storytelling skills."

Clay wheezes again. George takes it as progress.

"Well, um. I'm in my bedroom. The lights are out, the sun's down, I'm…" he trails off. George waits for a moment, letting out a slight breath when Clay continues unprompted. "I'm sitting on the floor, by the bed. My shirt's ridden up against the drywall. I- God, George, I don't know what _happened_ \--"

"Keep going," George prompts gently. "We can talk about that after."

"You're so bossy." Clay mutters. George can't help the slight smile.

"Um, last I checked, Patches is still asleep in the merch room. I can see my setup from here, though my desk is kind of messy so I-- uh, I mostly can't, actually. There's some clothes on the floor, I'm wearing white socks, uh…"

  
"Okay, you can stop." George prompts. "You sound a lot better."

"Thanks."

Silence falls over the call.

"Still want to talk about it?"

"… I mean, not much to say."

George sighs. He knows this tone too well, from years of dealing with it. What it indicates is a slow, wheedling conversation, cajoling Dream into vocalizing whatever's bothering him. When they had first met it was challenging, thrilling, intensely risky and intensely rewarding. George had taken and retraced every wrong step with gusto, and every right one as eagerly as he possibly could.

Now that it's been years, he walks the passages of the labyrinth with ease. No less joy, but the feeling's intensity has faded. Instead of the electric crackle of newness, it merely licks pleasantly at the walls of his ribcage. A lit hearth instead of a live wire.

"Clay, you can just talk to me. It's why I called you."

"I know, I know, I just--"  
"What?"

Clay sighs, shifting again. George can imagine him slowly straightening his back, stretching his lanky legs out from their cramped position. He's inwardly relieved the man isn't worsening his posture, not anymore.

Well, it's not like his posture _can_ get much worse. Clay is often seized by the fatal American need to bitch about early onset back pain, and George is frequently the nearest warm body.

"I feel stupid." Dream confesses. "Now that it's over, it’s like…"

"Like it happened for no good reason?" George offers. He can hear Clay's nod. "Well, that's nonsense, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it."

A wheezing chuckle, slowly growing in strength. George smiles into his palm. "They always feel stupid after they happen, dude. The key is letting it go."

"How do you know so much about this?" Clay asks bemusedly, tone leveling out.

"I don't know." George lies. "The internet, probably. Also, you're easy to understand."  


"I'm a simple man."

"A simp, yes."

"God, shut _up._ "

George laughs. He can't help it, proportionally relief and exhaustion and actual amusement. The absurdity of it strikes him, all at once. Of all the people in the world he could call for help, of all the people that could be _closer_ or _better_ , Clay chose George.

_Clay chose him._

He clears his throat, feeling an irritatingly persistent burn start to crawl up his cheeks. There's no one to see it, but he still scrubs it away, trying to force down the roiling boil in his stomach. He can cope with his own emotions off call.

"Yeah, laugh it up," Clay is saying, sounding amused. "bet you think you're real funny, Mr. NotFound."

"Hilarious." George replies dryly. The call re-enters comfortable silence.

"George?"

"Yes, Dream?" George immediately winces. "Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"No, it's okay. You can go back, unless you want to, yknow…" Dream trails off, unsure. The implication is clear enough.

"Okay, Clay." George says softly, feeling something dangerous bloom in his chest. "I think I will."

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! comments appreciated.  
> under no fucking circumstances am i taking this off of anon. if you feel a burning desire to talk to me, drop your discord and i (might) add you. i like my privacy.  
> bye!


End file.
